A game that puts you in the Dragon Ball Z universe one in which Super Sayins are meant to be GODS, not here though. . .
Graphics: 10 out of 10
Graphics are amazing in this game so far the most visually appealing Dragon Ball Z game to date, certainlly a step up from the old Budokai games. Fans wont be dissapointed to see their favorite characters spring to life with the smooth CGI that the Atari team at this point. . . . . .has seemed to perfect. Graphics I give you my hat tipped keep up the awesome work
Gameplay: 6-7 out of 10
Now dont get me wrong. . . . the Dragon Ball Z games have always brought an interesting fighting system to fans across the world but to acually get used to all the new concepts and such is just so. . . . hard. . . controls are not responsive and overall badlly made. . . . . you try to input a combo and you only end up doing 1 out of the 10 hits your supose to do! That leaves you wide open for attack which doesn't go over well with some users
This fighting ga-. . . . . . acually I take it back. . . . because of the other newest addition to the game. . . . a series of events that randomlly (after being triggered by a certain battle condition) appear to help you or hurt your opponent called "Drama peices". These Drama peices activate special cut scenes in the game and completelly interupt attacks and screw up your overall flow. Now there are some cases where you can turn these off to have just a smooth battle but then it would be like playing "Dragon Ball Z Budokai" . . . . . . . yes the original. All and all the drama peices are fun. . . . but get annoying if and when you need one and it doesn't show up and when your fine it does show up, Just feels like your watching an episode of Dragon Ball Z. . . . . not a fighting game.
As stated before the controls are unresponsive to your wishes and desires so your opponent can get the drop on you. Other than that the game stays true to the previous games control output you have two omg I's on fire moves. . . . . and then you have one Imma own u teh ubb3r n00b move. . . . . .all these moves really dont pose a threat unless if your not quick (or as I stated. . . . your game likes to see you sufer with unresponsive commands) or dont have a special drama peice to dodge the attack.
AI: 1-5 out of 10
The Artificial inteligance in this game can be annoying. . . . sometimes they are to easy and just run right up to you screaming for you to give them a classic S.S Broly Beatdown and other times they will stand there. . . . and block. . . . just block. Last time I remembered where Vegeta stood there and blocked his life away was. . . . . well. . . . .never. The AI obviouslly has no problems with using a bunch of complicated moves that will get your health from tip top shape all the way to I'm gonna die. . . . . normally when both the computer and yourself are on your last bar of health you an't help to wonder. . . . one Ultimate attack thats all I need!!! and then the AI pulls abunch of strings to get the camera man to confuse and startle you with a surprise attack of whoopage. . . . . .not fun at all. This can be really frustrating when your on modes such as Time attack and Survival. . . . but I'll hush up about those till later on in the reveiw.
There are many different modes in which you can play on this game those are (note I'll be going through all these in depth)
Z Chronicels - basiclly the "story mode" for the game
Versus - Play the AI. . . .play a friend. . . .and now! Play against total strangers on XBL!!!!!
Trial - Time attack. . . .survivial. . . . . total ownage to you XD.
Tutorial - Learn the game!!! but then forget all the controls cause your so obsessed with the way Gohan says, "Right!!" every other sentance
Training - practice makes perfect they say. . . never applied to Cell though =P
Options - change the setting to modes save. . . and load data!!!!!
Now that I have explained all the modes to you its time I go in depth with all of them some may be more self explanitory then others but for the sake of saying I did this reveiw thoroughlly. . . .
Z Chronicles: 4 out of 10
Now the story of Dragon Ball Z cannot be muked up any further I mean we have a whole mess of buff guys who get their shirts ripped off and scream at the top of their lungs to show whos stronger. This is a known fact and even us DBZ fans poke fun at this, but Burst Limit takes the story WAY out of context. Important events are skipped (such as Nappa's death the way he dies, Cell absorbing the androids ect ect) fans of the DBZ series will be like Ohhh ok he did that already in the middle of the "episodes" but newcomers to the DMZ franchise will be lost in a land of Super Sayin explosion limbo. I personally found this annoying and wont comment much more on that
one of the main things that the Atari and its team messed up on was the limited amount of frames they did for story mode. . . . every single scene seemed like the same thing . . . only with different people they had the same looks same actions everything was pretty much repeatitve it excited me to see a new cutscene but I go to find out it will eventually be repeated in the near future. . . .
"Story" mode offers multiple difficultty settings there is
Very Easy
Easy
Normal
Hard
Very Hard
and Z
these modes as you can tell will change how the AI will interact with you in battle I will be staying with "Normal" mode where it applies. If you want to test yourself put it on Z mode but first you must beat the game on Normal. . . . then Hard,. . . . . the Very Hard an overall tedious task that is very time consuming and frustrating but if your up for the task then by all means go for gold.
Versus: 5-6 out of 10
Now facing the computer awesome! You can learn their moves without having anything riding on the battle!!!
Fighting against friends locally SWEET!!!!!! I always like another human to challenge me!!!
Fighting on XBL. . . . .not so sweet. The reason for this is if you are not completelly skilled with the game (like I am) then you have no way of controlling who you face. . . .I was an F rank on live (I was going for the achievments and not the ranks) and I end up facing a Z rank how does that line up? Hello I thought I was host!!! I dont want to get destroyed in a flurry of attacks and then become dazed afterwards putting the controller down and crying in the corner. No I want an even match one of which if I get ya down low enough then I'm ok again I wasn't there to make friends or be competitve I was there for acheivments other than that people on live are extremelly polite and dont do any like "teabag motions" when you get KO'd so thats good keep it up.
Another thing that is bad about XBL (this has something to do with all fighters not just Burst Limit) is the fact if you face off against someone with a 2 bar connection your done for the match will be so laggy you'll think that Goku is wearing his own weights, Vegeta's armor, Piccolo's weights, and Pikkon's weights all put together but like I said before its a problem with all fighters since its one on one
Trial: 7 out of 10
Survival mode is a mode that the game puts you up against 100 enemies each subsequentlly getting harder as you progress throughout the 100 win streak one loss and your done with thats it! This mode is fun yet time consuming it should reach a mediocre player such as myself a little less then an hour to get to 100 wins other than that the game is fun till you lose
Time attack mode is a little frustrating AI is harder then they would be on a mode like survival and you need to beat them twice to progress. The time attacks have courses which basiclly put you against 10 of a certain type of enemy like for example course A in time attack is Freiza and his men. . . . .well last time I checked Freiza didn't have 2 copies of himself near the end of the saga.
Tutorial: 10 out of 10
the tutorial is fun and easy to use you learn first basics like reading the screen and attacking . . . .then you go to the middle man lessons like using ultimate blast and stuff like that then you reach the advance stages of training like Perfect Gaurd attack and I'm a God move titles along that line.
You follow Gohan as he progresses throughout the sagas of DBZ you first start of training with Piccolo for the Sayin's arraivals then you train with Krillin for Vegeta (and Freiza) and finally you train with your father to prepare for the Android attack! all these modes are fun and all but the dialouge is a little torn up Gohan loves to reply with "Right!" and it makes you laugh the first 2 times but then after the 5th you wanna give him a tutorial of your own. . . .
Training: 10 out of 10
its training what more can be said?
Options: N/A
I cant rate how well the options are they are all pretty self explanitory.
Character Roster: 1 out of 10
Last time I checked the last instalement of the DBZ franchise ranked in more than 120 characters now we are downsizing to only 21?!?!?! The roster is extremelly dissapointing leaving many fan favorites out of the game like Cooler and Turles. Plus the costumes in the game are a bit dissapointing. Goku keeps the same sostume for the whole entire game (the one he had in Budokai you know where his trainer is Master Roshi) it annoys me to see such tallent gone to the graphics alone but if this is the way that Atari wants to make their games then I will be sadened that they to have been corrupted by the shiny penny to make an even shinier Goku. . . .
Voice Acting: 2 out of 10
Ugh bad dubbing I can litterally read the japanesse right from their mouths its sad and the dialouge in the game is dissapointing when either Vegeta or Piccolo say "What...?!" they seem like they have been winded and cant muster up enough breath to say one word but they have it in their lungs to scream like a banshee. . . . . . also Atari needs to fix one small but HUGE problem and thats Cell's voice his voice goes from Perfect to Imperfect form to 2nd form listen my Cell is in his Imperfect state how about we keep that voice ok? Sadly how much all the fans complain about this I doubt it will happen . . . . .ever.
Music: 10 out of 10
the theme song to Burst Limit is catchy EXTREMELLY catchy I love it and listen to the opening every time I pop in the disc it makes me happy and cooled off for the coming frustration. . . . . plus battle music is nice as well keeps you calm yet angry just what a Sayin Warrior needs in battle!!!!!!
All in all Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit is a good game. . . . if you like mediocre games for the fans ots a mojor flop for new comers well I think they will not know whats up I can imagine if a newcomer to DBZ came up to me and said
"Ya the way Nappa was killed by Goku was awesome!!!!"
I would shale my head and walk away
Atari I thought you guys had a solid formula with Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tencaichi 3 but it looks like something went wrong. . . .real wrong
Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit for the Xbox 360:
5 out of 10